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When a third grade teacher discovered a jar of money hidden in a desk drawer in her classroom, she never imagined it would be money her students were secretly raising for kids with cancer. LeeAnn Trotter reports. (Published Tuesday, June 3, 2014)

Updated at 10:59 AM CDT on Tuesday, Jun 3, 2014

When a third grade teacher found a jar of money in her classroom, she never imagined what it would be for.

Keri Cialdella, a third grade teacher at Greenbriar Elementary School in Chicago Heights, said she was on a mission to clean up clutter in her classroom when she discovered the jar hidden inside a desk drawer.

The kids told Cialdella they had been making key chain decorations and selling them for 50 cents apiece.

“Well, they have a bad disease,” she third grader Karla Ruiz. “I want them to go home, have a family, go to school and learn.”

The jar had raised about $17 at the time Cialdella found it, but after news of the project spread, the idea grew.

“As we went on, more kids in my classroom started to learn how to make them, until it went to the other third grade room and they learned how to make them,” said student Caleb Avila.

The school’s principal decided to get the entire school involved, and the students have since raised more than $500.

In addition to the students’ key chains, school officials organized a silent auction, with art items donated by staff members and community residents, to help the kids raise even more money.

The auction, which was held in May, raised $4,069.

Officials said more than 200 supporters packed the school’s gym and hallways to help raise funds.

The money raised at the auction will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“They’re so young, yet they took this on themselves,” said Cialdella. “They started this, it wasn’t me. I’m just giving them the tools and the manpower to do so.”

Published at 4:22 PM CDT on May 15, 2014

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